Navigate / search

By Alicia Dietrich

Film still from 'Sunset Boulevard'The contributions of the actor can be seen throughout the Making Movies exhibition. The primary and most visible interpreter of character is the actor, who interacts with or is affected by every creative artist on the production team.

Gloria Swanson’s performance as the aging film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950) is now widely regarded as one of the most powerful in the history of film. The inner life of the character was first developed in the screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, who tailored specific details to Swanson’s own life and career. But Swanson also drew on her own experience as a silent-screen film actor when she relied primarily on facial expressions and pantomime to convey emotion and action to the audience. Her perfect balance of all the aspects of Desmond’s character created a truly memorable performance.

In this audio clip, Swanson talks about working with director Cecil B. DeMille and the violin players kept on the film sets to help actors get “into the mood” for happy or sad scenes. She also discusses acting technique for silent films with subtitle cards.

This audio excerpt is just one item from the “Actor” section of the Making Movies exhibition, which runs through August 1 at the Ransom Center. Follow our RSS and Twitter feeds or become a fan on Facebook to see new items from the exhibition revealed each day for the next few days as part of “Script to Screen.”

By Alicia Dietrich

Click image to enlarge. Early draft of the screenplay for 'Shakespeare in Love' by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, 1998.Of all the elements of filmmaking, the screenplay is arguably the most important. It is also the element most debated, discounted, discarded, and arbitrated. More often than not, the screenplay is an adaptation of another work—a novel, play, news story, biography, or even another screenplay.

The screenplay expresses character and narrative and is therefore the focus of interpretation by the director, actors, and designers. Furthermore, the screenplay is the foundation on which all the other artists and technicians base their work. Whether a scene takes place indoors or outdoors, for example, may affect the sets the art director designs and builds and the clothes the costume designer creates for the characters to wear. A scene set at night will have implications for the cinematographer and might be played differently by the actor than a scene set during daylight hours. Special effects, exotic locations, and action scenes will also have implications for the budget, the shooting schedule, and for everyone on the production team. All these elements must be spelled out in the screenplay in order to budget, plan, and successfully incorporate them into the film.

In this early draft of Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard’s screenplay for Shakespeare in Love (1998), handwritten notes and edits by Stoppard are visible. Scripts from 16 films are featured in the exhibition.

This is just one item from the “Writer” section of the Making Movies exhibition, which runs through August 1 at the Ransom Center. Follow our RSS and Twitter feeds or become a fan on Facebook to see new items from the exhibition revealed each day for the next few weeks as part of “Script to Screen.”

For Central Texas readers, join us February 12 on the red carpet for a special opening celebration for the Making Movies exhibition. Details at www.hrc.utexas.edu/redcarpet.